What If
by Rednih
Summary: Down the many rabbit holes. . .
1. Glass Through Low Tide

Disclaimer: Supernatural and certain characters belong to Eric Kripke and Warner Brothers. No profit is gained from this writing, only, hopefully, enjoyment.

* * *

In this place, he stays and damns them all anyway.

Sammy's stabbed and ripped up the spine with some rusty piece of metal. Guy who does it bolts the other direction, Bobby hot on the trail. Dean runs and runs, calling for him to watch out when it's already too late.

He's still calling for him when Sammy's body's nothing but burning, smoldering meat, when it's nothing but _what was_ and what is now ash.

He never stops calling, not even days later when the sky's flowing black with demons, a week and the stories are all over the news stations, a month and folks are dropping like flies, three and he hasn't been outside in 56 days, six and there are just three of them left here. Dean never stops.

He just doesn't say anything. No breath to spare. No room. Sammy would understand. Sammy'd get it.

Sammy, Dean is calling, and that's when little Chelsea suddenly takes that telltale deep inhalation in his arms. Seven months, eighteen days, more than twelve hours and some odd minutes later, Dean looks down at what used to be a little girl with brown Shirley Temple curls and two dimples and what is now a demon with a new lease on life and. . .

"Well, hey there, cutie. What'ssa matter, Dean? Cat got your tongue?"

Bout damn time.

And then he sees those cute as pie dimples, and Chelsea's demon hitcher is sticking her fingers through his ribcage.

Sammy would understand, is the thing. He was stabbed in the back, never even had time to scream. Never said a word. Truth is. . . truth is, Sammy'd already been gone by the time Dean had reached him.

Never had time, no breath to spare. Not a word. Sammy'd understand. Dean lets his eyes close tight, doesn't even bother with a death rattle.

Sammy, he's calling. And he never says a word.

No breath to spare.

Sammy.


	2. Looking Round the Bend

Disclaimer: Supernatural and certain characters belong to Eric Kripke and Warner Brothers. No profit is gained from this writing, only, hopefully, enjoyment.

* * *

In this place, he decides against going to Stanford for Sam.

He follows the leads, but his timing's always off. He gets picked up by the cops, and it's only after several hours of questioning that they leave him alone in the room. Dean picks the lock on the handcuffs and gets out, but it's a close call. Very close.

After the job's done and he's figured out Colorado's the next stop, he briefly thinks of stopping for Sammy again, but. . . he doesn't. Just keeps driving, moving forward, not looking back.

It's his kind of gig all right, but Dad's not here. Dean hadn't really let himself think beyond just reaching the coordinates in the journal, but now he can see it's obvious. Dad's blown him off. He's just sending Dean on a wild goose chase, and didn't even really bother to disguise it.

The wendigo is taken care of, but it too is one helluva close call. Dean feels pretty badass when all's said and done, though. He's just knocked out a Woman in White and a wendigo and it's not even Thursday yet. So maybe Dad's blown him off, but he must also be pretty confident that Dean can handle this stuff. He wouldn't send Dean these leads if he didn't trust him to deal with 'em. Dean just looks at it like he's graduated his apprenticeship. He is now a Jedi master.

The jobs from Dad eventually stop trickling in, but it's okay. Dean's got the gist of tracking these fuckers down pat, and the extra work isn't as bad as he'd made it out to be in his head. Research kinda sucks, but the payoff of icing nasties makes up for the hours and hours of banging his head against a wall. He gets the hang of it.

He gets the hang of it until he follows a nasty into a basement and somehow in the heat of the moment winds up electrocuting himself. The critter was taken out, though, so it's not a total bust.

It only takes a few hours and Dean's proven wrong. Fucking doctors and nurses and tubes, wires, needles, and turns out he's fucked. His heart's on its last leg and fat chance of getting a replacement. He's told he's got weeks. Weeks.

Three days he's been here playing the good patient, the good citizen, the good soldier, the good fucking son who always does what he's told and gets the job motherfucking _done_. He calls and leaves a message, and he doesn't call again. He knows the drill. One gets the point across. Any more and it's just a waste of everybody's time and energy. _"Call, spit it out, and hang up the phone. Then wait, Dean. I'll get back to you. I swear, okay?"_

Day Four rolls in and Dean can't do it any longer. Hospitals and worrying and all the anxiety ain't doing his heart any fucking good, that's for sure!

He opens his Contacts list and scrolls down, down, and before he left Sam had shouted at Dad to see things from his point of view. _"How would _**_you_**_ feel?"_ he'd shouted, over and over again.

Dean keeps replaying that in his head. How would he feel? How would _Dean _feel if it were Sam in the hospital and he never got a call telling him there were only weeks left? Weeks.

But then he remembers the rest of that argument, and Sammy going on to scream, _"I can't live like this anymore! I _**_can't_**_. I hate it here, Dad! I _**_hate_**_ it!"_ And that pretty much makes Dean's mind up for him.

Dean hits Send after awhile and the phone starts ringing. He brings it up to his ear just when the voice sounds over the line.

_"This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean at 866-907-3235. He can help."_

Dean doesn't leave a message. He already left one three days ago.

Dad'll get back to him. . . when he can.


	3. Mirror Up and Past

Disclaimer: Supernatural and certain characters belong to Eric Kripke and Warner Brothers. No profit is gained from this writing, only, hopefully, enjoyment.

* * *

In this place, he says yes.

He and Sam and Adam are in the Beautiful Room, and Zach's sending up the Angel Signal, and Dean says yes in his head. He looks at Adam bleeding on the floor, the guy naive enough to think he'd get out of this with something, much less something he'd actually wanted. Poor kid. There's no way out, and sure as hell nothing coming with but more pain and shame. Knowing Zachariah, Adam never would've seen his mom again, probably wouldn't've made it up to Heaven in the first place. Zach's not one for keeping his word or doing the right thing.

The Room is shaking and all of them with it. Dean doesn't bother steadying himself, just rocks with the force. There's a sound rising, and he knows what it is, recognizes it from the times with Cas. Soon the force of angelic voices will break and shatter everything in the room, from the obvious glass to the more hard to believe ear drums. Sam and Adam will bleed even more than they already are in just a minute.

Sam. Dean glances over at him again, lying there on the floor in the wreckage of Beautiful Objects. He quickly looks away, but not another five seconds pass before he's back to staring. Decades with this kid, years and years and more time spent with him than anyone else on the planet. He gave Sam baths when he was a bratty-ass toddler, and let him eat all the good food, and he put Sam to bed and told him bedtime stories about the most boring things imaginable. He knows almost every single facial expression and every single habit.

He loves Sam - more than anything. Anything. He gave up his future once to bring that kid back.

He'll do it again.

Glass starts breaking, and Dean watches Adam curl tighter into himself. He watches Sam, too, and Sammy. . . Sammy watches Dean right back. He watches Dean as blood starts slowly rolling from out of his nose, down over his mouth and chin. He watches with slit eyes and his hands to his ears when the sound of Michael's arrival grows deafening. Literally. Sam watches Dean, and Dean. . . Dean watches Sam right back.

He watches; he stares. He glances at Adam one more time and then never takes his eyes off Sammy.

Dean says yes. As the shaking gets worse, as the ceiling of the Room splits, as Sam bleeds and moans in agony, Dean says yes with every fiber of his being. Sam is here right now, and because Dean is saying yes the kid always will be. He'll be Sammy, and _he _won't say yes.

Dean's the oldest. It should be him going first, anyway: Mom, Dad, and then Dean. It only makes sense.

It's only the right thing to do.

"Welcome, brother!" Zachariah suddenly shouts, and it's Sammy's eyes moving over to the angel that is Dean's last sight.

Everything goes white, and Dean screams "**_Yes!_**"

And Michael agrees with him.


	4. SubEcho in Never Will

Disclaimer: Supernatural and certain characters belong to Eric Kripke and Warner Brothers. No profit is gained from this writing, only, hopefully, enjoyment.

* * *

In this place, he never gives in, never.

There was never time, never a chance. There never was an option; he never was anything else.

Never. Never. When he can't process anything because of everything, that word still somehow runs on a loop. Never, Never, Never.

It started as, "_No, I won't_," and they laughed and he could tell they tried harder after that. Familiar faces started showing up more frequently, the most popular still Dad and Sammy. He knows, though, can always tell. They never get them right, never. The voices are off sometimes, but more often than not it's just the phrasing, the words themselves. Demons are clever, but they're also arrogant. They can't resist showing off. Dad rarely showed off, and the same with Sam. It's what Dean clings to, never forgetting, never giving in.

But they try. Demons are persistent. He has to give 'em that. They never give up, either. There's no time, never was. He has no definite on how long he's been here.

He's stopped asking. The last answer he'd got wasn't something he wants to risk hearing again. But Demons lie. They. . . lie all the time.

"Like one of those onion blossoms at a restaurant or something," this one boasts, gently running its tongue over what used to be Dean's right eyeball. "Came out even better than I'd thought. Isn't that right, Dean-O? You remember the plans I showed you?" It wraps its arms around him, and he tries not to flinch back when its beard rasps across his cheek. "Such a nice canvas you make."

" . . . not too bad yourself," Dean manages, and the demon laughs and holds him tighter to its chest. The plaid shirt it's wearing catches on his exposed ribs and Dean bites his lip in two to stifle the scream wanting out. "Better than ol' Needles by far."

The demon pulls back from the embrace a bit. Dean's trying hard to keep from blinking, knowing if he does the feeling will be horrendous, so he catches it when the demon frowns at him for a second.

"Better than I'd thought," the demon repeats, and it's said so seriously that it's solemn. Dean doesn't get it, doesn't know what the angle of this moment is, but he's not falling for it. There's _always_ an angle. Everything's an attempt to get him to do something, but never. Never.

Never, he thinks, then says. "_Never_. You hear me?" he asks, staring with his left eye right at it. "Never," and then he spits in its face.

The real test isn't knowing what's fake, but what isn't. Demons lie, but down here they love telling the truth. He's expecting something now about how his dad confessed to enjoying this or that while he was down here, or how Sammy's switched sides topside, or more detail on how Dean's mom thought really hard about aborting him when she first found out she was pregnant with him. Dean's ready for that kind of thing. He's prepared.

What he gets instead is a kiss on his cheek and another solemn-voiced comment. He still thinks Never, but it occurs to him that Never really is a long time, and last time when he'd asked. . .

"That's a good lad," the demon-as-Dad whispers, and before he can stop himself Dean blinks.

He's screaming at the agony that is now located at his right eye, and he's ripping his lip apart trying to silence himself, but somehow he still manages to catch sight of the demon leaving. It flickers like all the newer ones do, its appearance shifting due to lack of practice. Dad's face switches to a different one for less than a second, before returning and then flickering again. On and off, on and off, male then female, on and off, beard no beard, short hair then long hair.

Dean's lungs are on the ground, along with his right hand, all of the skin from his waist up, and his dick, but still he's breathing. Air comes out of his mouth when it falls open in shock.

But, "Don't ask anymore," she tells him, stepping back some more. "You don't want to know how long." Dean tries to say something when the change in accent registers, but "Don't ask," the demon repeats, cutting him off.

Then she's gone, and Dean repeats Never, Never, Never in his head until the next demon shows up. His body's back to its starting position, and Dean blinks, enjoying the sensation once before everything starts all over again.

'Three' had been the answer the last time he'd asked. "_Three years?_" Dean had shouted. _"Man, you guys are good! Feels like longer than that_- "

"_Three lifetimes, Dean_," Needles had murmured. _"Time zone change down here_," it'd added, its thin voice as piercing as the tools it favored.

Don't ask, she'd told him.

If it'd been 'three' awhile ago, he couldn't help wondering how many it was now, how many it'd take to wear him down. Never, he immediately thought, hating himself for even momentarily doubting. _Never_.

But he wondered if everyone started out with Never. He wondered if Bela had, or if it'd all been just another angle.


	5. The Way He Sees It

Disclaimer: Supernatural and certain characters belong to Eric Kripke and Warner Brothers. No profit is gained from this writing, only, hopefully, enjoyment.

* * *

In this place, he never really sees Sam again.

His last words to his brother are spoken over the phone, forever "_I just can't anymore, Sammy_."

Croatoan hits fast and hard, both in dispersion and incubation. An hour, maybe two on the outside, and if someone's got it they show it. There's no doubt, no middle ground, no grey, and no exceptions. The one exception there ever had been is. . . long gone, long dead, erased up North in Detroit.

Sammy went out in a blaze of glory, a backwash of light and searing hellfire so powerful it killed any and all electricity for thousands of miles, both around and up. Planes crashed from the sky that day, smaller explosions like accompaniment to the massive one.

Dean had gone outside, stood on the roof, and together he and Cas had watched from more than 200 miles away. "_Lightbringer_," Cas had said, and Dean had tried not to flinch at the hand the angel set on his shoulder.

It's suddenly truly the Apocalypse, the endgame, the final climactic battle, but Dean can't help thinking of it all as just aftershocks, the boring part of a terrible movie. The epilogue. He's here, but it's nothing more than treading water, waiting, waiting.

First time he comes, Dean calls him Sam without even thinking. There's someone's weight right at his shoulder as he wakes up in the middle of the night, and Dean opens his eyes blearily and asks, "Sam?" Less than a second and he gets his mistake, knows almost immediately that it's not his brother, but. . . for that brief moment. . . it was. Dean starts pulling his gun out from under his pillow, but is stopped by a hand on his arm. "No, Dean," the Devil says softly, his hand so hot on Dean's skin it burns.

The second time, Dean doesn't even get a chance to pretend it's anyone but who it is.

The third time, Cas is right there next to him, sound asleep and taking up too much room. Dean thinks he wasn't even all the way unconscious because he can feel it when the air changes. He opens his eyes and the Devil's sitting in the chair beside the bed, Dean's coat still lying over the back of it. Lucifer smiles at him, and even in almost pitch-black darkness Dean can see the differences. Cas doesn't wake up, and Dean never says a word about it.

The fourth and final time the Devil appears, Dean is sitting in that very same chair next to that same bed watching a younger version of himself sleep. The air shifts, and Dean lifts his head in preparation. The younger version stays still on the bedcovers, but Dean knows his own tells.

At one point, Lucifer moves close to the bed, so close, and before he can even think, Dean is reaching out and stopping that familiar hand from touching. "No," Dean says, and the muscles in Sam's arm twist under his fingers, shifting as the arm moves so that Dean is gripped tight in return.

"No?" the Devil remarks, his thumb stroking along Dean's wrist slowly. Back and forth, back and forth, that small, knowing little smile on his face.

Dean swallows, knows he's not asleep but just playing possum.

"Be a bit. . . redundant? Wouldn't it?" he asks, and in response Sam's cheek dimples as his mouth stretches into a wider grin.

"All in due time."


End file.
